By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc.

Gallipoli the Landing – By a Man of the Tenth.  “Come on lads, have a good hot supper, there’s business doing.” So spoke No. 10 Platoon Sergeant of the 10th Australian Battalion to his men lying about in all sorts of odd corners aboard the battleship Prince of Wales in the first hour of the morning of April 25th, 1915.  The ship, or her company had provided a hot stew of bully beef and the lads set to and took what proved alas to many, their last real meal together. They laugh and joke as though picnicking then a voice calls “Fall In!” ringing down the ladderway from the deck above. The boys swing on their heavy equipment, grasp their rifles and silently make their way on deck and stand in grim black masses. All lights are out and only harsh low commands break the silence. “This way, and almost blindly we grope our way to the ladder leading to the huge barge below that is already half full of silent grim men who seem to realise that at last after eight months of hard solid training in Australia, Egypt and Lemnos Island they are now to be called upon to carry out the object of it all. “Full up sir” whispers the midshipman in the barge.  “Cast off the drift astern” says the ship’s officer in charge of the embarkation. Slowly we drift astern until the boat stops with a jerk and twang goes the hawser that couples the boats and barges together. Silently the boats are filled with men and silently drop astern of the big ship until all being filled, the order is given to the small steamboats and away we go racing and bounding dipping and rolling, now in a straight line, now in a half circle on through the night. The moon has just about sunk below the horizon and looking back we can see the battleships coming on slowly in our rear ready to cover our attack. All at once our pinnace gives a great start forward and away we go for land just discernible one hundred yards away on our left. Then crack-crack! Ping-ping! Zip-zip! Trenches full of rifles on the shore and surrounding hills open on us and machine-guns hidden in gullies and redoubts increase the murderous hail. Oars are splintered, boats are perforated. A sharp moan, a low gurgling cry tells of a comrade hit. Boats grounded in four or five feet of water owing to the human weight contained in them. We scramble out, struggle to the shore and rushing across the beach take cover under a low sandbank.  “Here take off my pack and I’ll take off yours.” We help one another to lift the heavy water-soaked packs off”. “Hurry up, there” says our sergeant. “Fix bayonets,” Click! and the bayonets are fixed. “Forward!” and away we scramble up the hills at our front. Up, up we go, stumbling in holes and ruts and with a ringing cheer we charge the steep hill, pulling ourselves up by roots and branches of trees and at times driving our bayonets into the ground and pushing ourselves up to a foothold, until, topping the hill we found the enemy had made themselves very scarce. What had caused them to fly from a position from where they could have driven us back into the sea every time?.  We instantly fired on a few scattered Turks showing in the distant.  Some fell to rise no more, others fell wounded and crawling into the low bushes they sniped our lads as they went past. There were snipers in plenty, cunningly hidden in the hearts of low green shrubs. They accounted for a lot of our boys in the first few days but gradually were rooted out. Over the hill we dashed and down into what is now called “Shrapnel Gully” and up the other hillside until on reaching the top we found that some of the lads of the 3rd Brigade had commenced to dig in. We skirted round to the plateau at the head of the gully and took up our line of defence. As soon as it was light enough we could see the guns on Gaba Tepe to our right and two batteries away on our left that opened up a murderous hail of shrapnel on our landing parties.  The battleships and cruisers were continuously covering the landing of troops, broadsides going into the batteries situated in tunnels in the distant hillside. All this while the seamen from different ships were gallantly rowing and managing the boats carrying the landing parties. Not one man that is left of the original brigade will hear a word against our gallant seamen. England may well be proud of them and all the Australians are proud to call them comrades. The front firing line was now being baptised by its first shrapnel.  Machine guns situated on each front, flank and centre opened up on our front line. Thousands of bullets began to fly around and over us, sometimes barely missing. Now and then, one heard a low gurgling moan and turning saw near at hand some chum who only a few seconds before had been laughing and joking now lying gasping with his life blood soaking down into the red clay and sand. “Five rapid rounds at the scrub in front” comes the command of the subaltern. Then an order down the line “Fix bayonets!” Fatal order was it not, perhaps some officer of the enemy had shouted it? (for they say such things were done). Out flash a thousand bayonets scintillating in the sunlight like a thousand mirrors, signalling our position to the batteries away on our left and front. We put in another five rounds rapid fire at the scrub in front. Then over our line, front and rear such a hellish fire of lyddite and shrapnel that one wonders how anyone could live amidst such a hail of death-dealing lead and shell.  “Ah, got me! says one lad on my left and he shakes his arms. A bullet has passed through the biceps of his left arm, missed his chest by an inch and passed through the right forearm and finally struck the lad between him and me with a bruising blow on the wrist. The man next to him started to bind up his wounds as he was bleeding freely. All the time shrapnel was hailing down on us. “Oh! comes from directly behind me and looking around I see the poor little Lieutenant of C Company has been badly wounded. From both hips to his ankles blood is oozing through pants and puttees and he painfully drags himself to the rear. I raise him to his feet and at a very slow pace start to help him to shelter, but alas! I have only got him abut fifty yards from the firing line when again we were both peppered by shrapnel and shell. My rifle-butt was broken off to the trigger-guard and I received a smashing blow that laid my cheek on my shoulder. The last I remembered was the poor Lieutenant groaning as we both sank to the ground. When I came too I found myself in “Shrapnel Gully” with an AMC (Australian Medical Corps) man holding me down. I was still clasping my half-rifle. And so, after twelve hours hard fighting I was aboard a troopship again wounded, but I would not have missed it for all the money in the world.

Source: The original Anzac Book 1916.

We do not glorify war, but we do remember.  LEST WE FORGET.